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Dance Moves As an Identifier

"The 16-year-old juvenile suspect is known for his 'swag,' or signature dance move," Heyse said, "and [he] does it in the hallways at school." Presumably, although the report doesn't make it clear, a classmate or teacher saw the video, recognized the distinctive swag and notified authorities.

But is swag admissible to identify a defendant? Assuming it really is unique or distinctive -- and it looks that way from the clip, but I'm no swag expert -- I'd say yes.

Comments

It's a factor in ID, not sufficient of itself. I used it to ID someone who committed a crime against me -- a hooker snatched part of my taxi driver's change. She was dumb enough to forget she had ridden with me several times. The cops wanted to know how I could make the ID from a hundred yards or so, and it was the composite of appearance and unique stride. However, it was confirmed in a line-up (which was all too easy).

Dance moves as an identifier - I think we just found a new biometric here!

To login to the system, please insert your identification card, and perform the following moves on the attached Dance Dance Revolution pad...

On a more serious note, body language is definitely a good assisting identifier, but to obtain a conviction I believe additional identifying information would be needed. If the "dance move" is that well known by peers, it would be easy for someone to mimic the motions.

Notice my login example above is "two-factor" authentication. Using a "dance move" by itself would not be sufficient identification, because body language can be mimicked.

IANAL but I would say no it's not admissible and the article goes on to explain why. Just because you have a match doesn't mean it's a unique match. So I'd argue that whatever probative value it has is outweighed by prejudicial value. This is isn't DNA we are talking about. How does one know that it isn't someone who sort of looks like the perp trying to frame him. It's not actually evidence of anything at all but as things stand merely a possible coincidence.

Well, there is another identifier for biometrics? Although, I think it could not be only identifier used. Some guys can't dance with alcohol (me) and for some the dance moves would vary by consumption.

Are the dance moves enough evidence to convict the guy? I'd hope not. Are they enough to search his house, find the stolen property, and use _that_ to convict the guy? I'd expect so.

Not enough evidence to convict is still usually plenty of evidence to go and get more evidence until there's enough to convict. So those of you contemplating victimless crimes, please remember that your threshold for how much evidence is too much to leak is "enough for a search warrant" rather than "enough for a conviction". For those of you contemplating other crimes (of which I might find myself the victim), please ignore everything I just said.

Admissible probably yes. Given strong evidentiary weight no.
Courts have strict rules for admission of evidence but on the whole they try to admit things that are relevant and testable in court. All of the doubts that people have raised in the comments are reasons for the defence/jury to reject it as proof.

I don't know why it wouldn't be admissible. Sure it may not be unique, but that hasn't stopped the FBI using metallurgy to match a bullet to packet of bullets and getting convictions. It may match, but then it also matches every other packet of bullets out there. Or at least a very large portion. Just as a single example.

This is one area where the sloppiness of shows like CSI "shows a match" in fact parallels reality fairly well.

And i have not even started on the logical/statistical fallacies used in courts to prove guilt.

@greg. Exactly right. Forensics is seen as an exact science that leaves no doubt. That is the way it is presented and even perceived by a majority of the public.

Computer forensics is as close to a straight forward search. BUT, there is too much left out, unaccounted for, and presented poorly. Luckily, most criminals are rather stupid. I tend to think that bad behavior/mad mental processes. The sloppiness shows itself.

I do wonder about the really intelligent ones though. They are probably never caught. Encryption, VPNs, Tor, OS that leave no trace etc. Maybe a lack of evidence would help convict, anyway, Just random thoughts. Border patrol can have fun looking at my 10GB of Lolcats.. oh, and my copies of every one of Schneier's essays.....

Sounds like the barrier to getting your house tossed via a warrant is getting lower all the time. Not to say the guy shouldn't be questioned. But we are making it awfully easy to frame someone. Heck, steal $10k worth of stuff, break into the second home, hide $2k worth stuff, profit.

@MV. Thanks you made me chuckle and I acknowledge that you are right on that.

A thought occurs to me. I haven't seen anyone ask the question. During WW1 and WWII the rights of american citizens were violated, snitches, spying on fellow americans by government, etc. It's why I don't know german, GGP stopped speaking german during WWI.

It happened and then everything went back to normal. Are there similiarities and differences between history and what is happening now? Just a thought and toss in the exception of the modern age of surveillance?

Here in Australia, my wife sat on a jury for a robbery trial in 2003 in which part of the evidence relied on the expert testimony of facial and gait analysis expert Dr Meiya Sutisno. My wife's view was that the overall weight of evidence (Sutisno's being a small part of it) clearly pointed to guilt.

Due to difficulties in revealing Sutisno's methodology (there seem to be patents pending), the conviction was overturned on appeal and sent back for re-trial where a second trial resulted in a hung jury and a third resulted in conviction (without Sutisno's evidence).

It doesn't need to be. Any criminal who's enough of an idiot to perform a distinctive dance move in front of a camera -- a dance move that he also routinely performs in the hallways on a day-to-day basis -- is stone cold certain to have left other evidence of his identity, which should be easy enough to discover once you've identified him. Just for example, if he left even a partial fingerprint anywhere, you now know whose prints to compare it against.

The so-called "swag" (a word that I always thought referred to pirate treasure and vendor-branded merchandise handed out at conferences and similar events; but whatever) may not be great evidence in court, but it is a *fantastic* clue for the investigators, one that practically screams, "Look at me! Look at how cool and bad I think I am, committing this crime. I'm so cool, I'm not even worried about getting caught. I want people to know how cool I am. I'm probably going to spend half a day tomorrow bragging to anyone who will listen about how I pulled this off."